


Spiders at Work

by RobNips



Category: RWBY
Genre: Author is Evil, Body Horror, Broken Bones, Grimm - Freeform, Kind of a stretch to get to this situation, Memory Alteration, Mutilation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 22:04:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16627253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobNips/pseuds/RobNips
Summary: He's spent his entire life fighting monsters, protecting others. One dip in the Brothers Grimm leaves Qrow a remnant of himself, and exactly what he's fought against





	Spiders at Work

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having a reoccurring nightmare thanks to bad combinations of horror movies and life stress, and apparently my brain attaches that to RWBY. So this was more of a therapeutic thing to get it out of my head, and maybe into your's :) I'm not really a horror writer so forgive me if this is pretty basic. Warnings are applicable though

The blackness that filled the pools of Brothers Grimm bubbled, but were not boiling. Anyone standing close to a pit would not feel any heat come from them. That is not to say that they were points of freezing, either. One would think the air around the pit would be still, chilling one down to the bones as the warmth and comfort light and heat gives you was stripped away. That was not the case, either. 

The cold one felt was not of lack of heat, and the heat one felt was not from anything burning. The feeling was there, surely, but it was not from the natural chill or heat of the Grimm Pool. 

The pockets of air that did bubble to the surface did not smell, though after year of experience She had come to believe that if you were to come that close to the pit in the first place, smell was the last thing on your mind. The tar looked viscous, sure to grab on to ones skin, suck them down into the dark and never let go without considerable fighting, which had proved to be useless. This was not the case. Ones movements would surely be slow, the pool was not filled with water, but it was suffocating in a way something like tar would be. 

Qrow had never asked about the specifics. He knew what came out of the pools, didn’t dwell on how they were made, just how to kill them. He’d always simple like that. Raven would tell him to fight, he fought. Then Summer would tell him the plan, he followed through. Ozpin told him to go, he went. Most ended up with killing. Villagers, then Grimm, then followers of this witch he’d never seen but decided to always believe Oz about. He’d seen the things she’s made, the things that come out the Brothers Grimm. 

The very thing he was inches away from now. 

He had told Ruby and the rest of them he’d fly ahead, search for shelter, or the next town, or just to clear his head. That - the fact that he was just distracted because  _ Oz hid all this for all these years and even I didn’t know and maybe Raven was right like she always used to be  _ \- was the excuse he gave himself after the bullet from that punkass kid with the boots might as well had blown his wing right from his body. Wielding Harbinger with only one hand wasn’t new. Trying to fight two kid assassins barely older than his girls along with Grimm he couldn’t tell were real or part of the green-haired ones little tricks - that was new. He would have welcomed a real challenge, if he already wasn’t so exhausted. 

How they found him, how they managed to overpower him, and how they even knew which particular bird in an open sky was him was lost to Qrow. Now his worries lied more in the bubbling Brothers Grimm below him that seemed hot and cold at the same time. And the maiden above him, heel to his back, keeping him face down as the witch pondered Cinder’s proposition. 

He couldn’t shift, not with his arm still broken and his aura shattered. All he’d do is flap his wings a few times, be in more pain, and fall right into the pit whether Salem granted it or not. He’d at least like to go into a quite literal pool of darkness not flailing and panicking. 

“I see no waste in trying.” 

Qrow’s heart sped up without permission, hearing a satisfied hum from the girl above him at Salem’s allowance. Her heel started digging in his back, ready to kick him forwards and into the pool. 

“I know who you were.” Though the knowledge wouldn’t get him anywhere now, Qrow still spat out the words. “You and Oz both.” 

It gave her pause, that was enough. Qrow doubted anyone could stun an incarnate of evil into silence, if only for a moment.  _ Not bad for a dusty old crow.  _

“Be more concerned for yourself.” 

The heel shoved him forwards by the neck. 

The pool seemed the catch him as he landed, not so giving as water but not like landing on anything hard. The black swallowed him nonetheless, squeezing in from all sides until it felt like he was frozen. Black blotted out his vision, moving from surrounding him to seeping in. Through his ears, nearly blocking how loud his heart was pounding. The black forces his eyes open, he felt the burning as it entered the sockets, blacking out his vision and taking its eyes for itself. 

He should be dead _pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasekillmefaster_ by now it was hard to keep straight how it hurt. He wished it was a burning, a bite, something solid his brain could latch on to and shut down. It didn’t. A corruption that he couldn’t place, destroying him from the inside. 

_ Tai always told me something similar  _ but the memory escaped him. 

His mouth fell open in what would have been a scream, tar quickly filling that space as well. The crack of his jaw being forced open wider to accommodate rang through his ears. The pain was quickly replaced with fear again. Qrow uselessly choked as it slid down his throat filling the spaces within him, pushing what was natural back up his throat and out to be consumed by the black around him. 

It seemed to pulse in his organs as it made its way through him. The black split them open inside him to fill what was left in between muscle and artery. The blood that used to assure him he was still a human being ran black as the sludge crept through his veins. The rest made for what was left of his insides, surrounding the bones. 

He distantly heard the sharp cracks, barely feeling as his spine was split apart, vertebrae by vertebrae. Qrow curled forward, the bones cracking apart to be reshaped. His neck elongated as his spine was stretched apart, splitting open the loose skin of his back like spikes. The bones in his limbs shattered under the pressure of the tar, the blackness surrounding the shards as it stretched out his arms and legs.  _ Nononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono _

Two of his fingers split open as they engorged, fighting against his rings and ended up actually losing, what was left of his skin wrapping around the metal over ditching the fingers altogether. The twisted remains of his bones creaked and scraped together as Qrow thought to move them. 

He’s seen the horrors that have come out of this pit, he never thought any of them were actually alive. Bone plating and shards extending unnaturally from random areas. Blind need for destruction, murder. Nothing with a soul could live in something like that. 

_ Ihavetobedeadihavetobedeadkillmekillmekillmeimalreadydeadihavetabe _

The thought did come, amidst the change, of how they would burn bodies in the Tribe so the soul wouldn’t feel whatever came after. Maybe he should have listened. Listened to Raven and buried whatever guilt he had like he’d done for the first so many years of his life and end up anywhere but here. Trapped in whatever he was becoming.

Like the cold splash of water during a hangover, the Hate came. The pain came in a wave that blinding, excruciating until he thought he was finally dying, before muting again as the black crawled its way up the his brain. 

Everything he felt was being flushed out, pushed away like something distant. Things that urged on feeling he knew he felt but couldn’t remember exactly as scenes played out.  _ Fighting and sparring and killing and school and drinkinganddrinkinganddrinkingand Taitellinghimto STOP and Summertellinghimto STOP andsheleftleftleftleftdeadleftleftSHEDIEDbutmightaswellhadleftandheHATEDherforit justlikeRavenandwhoshewas orwhosheusedtobeorwhohethoughtshewasandshouldbe andwhoSummerthoughthewasandshouldbeandcohldbeandhowOzgavehimthatchanceandYangandRuby howtheywerentlikeanyoneelsetohimandhowRubylookedathimlikehewasntamonster _ like he was now. 

Everything was pushed the front and flushed out, anything that made him feel was gone. Replaced  _ loveloveitwasalwayslovebuticantntfeelthatanymore  _ with carnal, primal, and singular  _ HateandHateandhateandhateandhateandhateandhateandhateandhatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehateHateHateHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE  _

 

Salem watched the black remnants of a man crawl its way out the Brothers Grimm, bubbling as it finished its work. It heaved in breaths, something she always found interesting as there was no need for it, and lay nearly helpless on the ground in front of her. 

It would need more bone. Solid, structural bone to keep it upright and move properly rather than drag itself. The skull was too heavy for the neck, stretched and barely holding on. The black excuse for skin barely keeping the jaw attached. A bald spot exposed the skull, skin scratched off somehow during the process. What used to be the spine was now protruding outward, the ribs splintering the same way. The fingers too fat and nubby to do any harm. Yes, much work to do. 

Salem glanced to Cinder at her side, the arrogant smirk annoying her further. She was always eager to please these days, and much too confident given her failures. Bringing Salem a project and expecting a reward would have to be corrected. All this talk of spiders, and using their enemy against them, it was a stretch, to say the least. 

For now, Salem supposed this could lead to something. Ozpin’s little bird didn’t perish in the pool, the monster in his place had the possibility to be useful. A message to Ozpin, or a horror to the rest of humanity, if nothing else. She folded her fingers, tilting her head at the mass that the boiling Brothers Grimm spat out.  

“It’s a start.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love!


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